Possible Misreading in 1 Maccabees 7:34 in Light of Its Biblical Model
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JBL 138, no. 4 (2019): 777–789 https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1384.2019.5 Possible Misreading in 1 Maccabees 7:34 in Light of Its Biblical Model matan orian [email protected] Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 8410501, Israel First Maccabees 7:34 employs four verbs to describe the offensive speech by Nicanor, the Seleucid general, addressed to the Jewish elders and priests. The third verb indicates that Nicanor defiled his audience. While this has led scholars to associate 1 Maccabees with the Jewish concept of gentile impurity, several factors suggest that, at this point, an error found its way into the Greek translation from the original Hebrew. The present argument comprises three steps. First, I use the biblical Sennacherib story, featured in the background of the Nicanor episode in 1 Maccabees, as a means of reconstructing the relevant original Hebrew verb employed by 1 Maccabees. Second, I suggest a possible misreading of one letter on the part of the Greek translator. Finally, I propose that a similar, earlier verse in 1 Maccabees, 1:24b, may have been conducive to the translator’s commission of this mistake, thus offering an insight into his way of thinking. I. A Verb Clearly out of Context First Maccabees 7:34 employs four verbs to describe the insulting nature of the speech by Nicanor, the Seleucid general, directed at the Jewish elders and the priests of the Jerusalem temple who emerged from the temple to greet him: “he mocked them, derided them, defiled them, and spoke arrogantly” (ἐμυκτήρισεν αὐτοὺς καὶ κατεγέλασεν αὐτῶν καὶ ἐμίανεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἐλάλησεν ὑπερηφάνως).1 The third verb, “defile,” plainly differs from the other verbs in this verse: it does not relate to the nature of the speech but rather to a cultic or ritual consequence of some physical act committed by Nicanor. Such an act, however, remains unspecified,2 1 All translations from Hebrew provided in this article are mine, unless otherwise specified. Translation of Greek verbs is based on LSJ. 2 Elia S. Artom speculated that perhaps Nicanor committed a disgraceful act (TheApocryphal Books [Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1958], 1:48). 777 This article was published in JBL 138/4 (2019) 777–789, copyright © 2019 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase copies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL, please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free in North America] or 404-727-9498, by fax at 404-727-2419, or visit the online SBL Store at www.sbl-site.org. 778 Journal of Biblical Literature 138, no. 4 (2019) and the fourth and final verb (accompanied by an adverb) returns to the descrip- tion of Nicanor’s speech. At face value, the use here of “defile” would appear to be out of context. The following observations further reinforce this impression: 1. Why would Nicanor constitute a source of defilement? Rabbinic literature, a Jewish corpus with a developed concept of gentile impurity,3 tells of a figure— variously a king, an Arab, an Arab king, or a foreign ruler—who spoke with a high priest and accidently spat upon him, rendering him impure and hence temporarily unfit for service.4 Consequently, in explaining the source of the defilement in 1 Macc 7:34, commentators lean heavily on this story.5 Yet 1 Maccabees shows little sympathy toward gentiles.6 It therefore would not have hesitated to refer to 3 Christine E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 122–31. 4 See t. Yoma 3:20 (Lieberman ed., 248); Avot of Rabbi Nathan, recension A 35 (Schechter ed., 104), b. Yoma 47a; y. Meg 1:9 (72a) and parallels. Compare t. Niddah 5:3 (Zuckermandel ed., 645); and see Adolf Büchler, “The Levitical Impurity of the Gentile in Palestine before the Year 70,” JQR 17 (1926): 1–81, here 4–9; Gedalyahu Alon, “The Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles,” in Jews, Judaism and the Classical World: Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple and Talmud, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), 146–89, here 153, 165; and Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, part 4, Order Moed [Hebrew] (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962), 805–6. 5 John R. Bartlett (The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, CBC [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], 101) and Jonathan A. Goldstein (I Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 41 [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976], 327, 340) even translated the verse accordingly, namely, that Nicanor “spat on them,” and “rendered them unclean with his spit,” respectively. Others, who adhere to the translation “defiled them,” adopt the “spit thesis” in an accompanying note: Hugo Bévenot, Die beiden Makkabäerbücher, HSAT (Bonn: Hanstein, 1931), 99; Félix-Marie Abel, Les livres des Maccabées, Ebib (Paris: Gabalda, 1949), 140; Uriel Rappaport, The First Book of Maccabees: Introduction, Hebrew Translation, and Commentary [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2004), 216; and Daniel J. Harrington, First and Second Macca- bees, New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament 12 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), 48–51. Quite a few scholars mention that the medieval Hebrew text Josippon says explicitly that “Nicanor spat against the Sanctuary” (David Flusser, The Josippon, Edited with an Introduction, Commentary, and Notes [Hebrew], 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1978–1981] 1:104). See Johann M. A. Scholz, Die Bücher der Makkabäer (Frankfurt am Main: Barrentrapp, 1833), 107; Carl L. W. Grimm, Das erste Buch der Maccabäer, KEH (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1853), 115; Carl F. Keil, Commentar über die Bücher der Makkabäer (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1875), 133; Büchler, “Levitical Impurity,” 33 n. 83; Abraham Kahana, The Apocryphal Books [Hebrew], 2 vols. (Tel Aviv: M’qoroth, 1937), 2:133; Abel, Les livres des Maccabées, 140; and Solomon Zeitlin in his commentary accompanying Sidney Tedesche, The First Book of Maccabees: An English Translation (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950), 142. Regarding the effect of rabbinic literature on the Hebrew Josippon, see Flusser, Jossipon, 2:112–15; Shulamit Sela, The Arabic Josippon [Hebrew], 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and Tel Aviv University, 2009), 1:81–84. 6 Daniel R. Schwartz, “The Other in I and II Maccabees,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Graham N. Stanton and Guy G. Stroumsa (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1998), 30–37. This article was published in JBL 138/4 (2019) 777–789, copyright © 2019 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase This article was published in JBL 138/4 (2019) 777–789, copyright © 2019 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase copies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL, please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free in copies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL, please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free in North America] or 404-727-9498, by fax at 404-727-2419, or visit the online SBL Store at www.sbl-site.org. North America] or 404-727-9498, by fax at 404-727-2419, or visit the online SBL Store at www.sbl-site.org. Orian: Possible Misreading in 1 Maccabees 7:34 779 gentile impurity, had it been familiar with the concept. Nevertheless, apart from this proposed, highly incidental reference, 1 Maccabees fails to mention gentile impurity or otherwise indicate its existence.7 Thus, attributing the concept of gen- tile impurity to 1 Maccabees appears to be anachronistic. 2. Does the text of 1 Maccabees otherwise support Nicanor’s defilement of the priests and the elders? Christine Hayes noted that in 1 Macc 7:36, only two verses after Nicanor allegedly defiles the priests, the latter return to the temple and pray between the altar and the vestibule, a place accessed only by priests in a state of ritual purity—a clear indication that they had not been defiled.8 3. Do other ancient Hebrew versions of Nicanor’s speech support the reading “defile”? The 13th of Adar, commemorating Nicanor’s defeat by the Hasmoneans, is listed in the Scroll of Fasting, a brief listing of happy occasions when fasting is forbidden (hence, Taanit, “fasting”) written in Aramaic and dating from the Sec- ond Temple period. The list is cited by rabbinic literature and accompanied by a later Hebrew scholion in two recensions, titled Parma and Oxford in modern research.9 Like 1 Maccabees, Scholion P (Parma) to the 13th of Adar also describes ומחרף ומגדף … דבר :Nicanor’s disparaging speech. It uses three verbs and an adverb ,The first two verbs, in the present participle, apparently used as synonyms .בגאיות denote abusive speech: (Nicanor was) “blaspheming and reviling.” The third verb, in the past tense, “spoke,” together with the accompanying adverb, denotes arrogant speech.10 A parallel reference in the Palestinian Talmud adds to this string another to spurn” or “to slander”)—and thus contains four verbs (in the past“) נאץ—verb -and he blas“) וחירף וגידף וניאץ … דיבר באשמה :tense), exactly as in 1 Macc 7:34 phemed and reviled and slandered … spoke in accusation”).11 Accordingly, the 7 Even Alon, a prominent advocate of a prerabbinic Jewish concept of gentile impurity, was careful to set the terminus post quem for this concept in the middle of the first century BCE, that is, in the later Hasmonean period, several decades after the composition of 1 Maccabees (“Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles,” 165, 167, 187). On the dominant opinion that 1 Maccabees dates to the last three decades of the second century BCE, see Rappaport, First Book of Maccabees, 60–61.